HN Explorer

Ask HN: comment downvote sniping

12 points by kls ↗ HN
Has anyone ever experienced their comments being down-voted in a systematic fashion. I just checked my threads link to look to see if anyone has responded to any of my comments and responses to comments, when I noticed that a bunch of my post's have been down-voted for no apparent reason. They are not controversial posts at all, and most of them are just friendly advice. Has anyone else had this happen to them? I am not really worried about the karma but it's a pretty uncool thing to do to someone who tries hard to contribute to the forum, if it is indeed someone sniping comments of people that they disagree with. Just thought I would see if it is happening to other people because this is the second time I have noticed the pattern on my comments.

30 comments

[ 5.8 ms ] story [ 57.4 ms ] thread
lucisferre
I've seen this is a problem on Reddit, though I've never really noticed it myself. Someone decides the dislike or disagree with you enough, or perhaps they were just pissed off with the way you responded to them and they go through your history down-voting everything they can.

I'm just curious can you even down/up-vote old comments. Seems like they should lock after a few days to prevent this sort of behaviour.

kls
To my knowledge comments do not lock, I know that I can go back several pages in my history and upvote responses to my comments. You cannot downvote responses to your comment's so I don't know if downvote get's disables at a certain point.

Edit: According to brudgers comment downvoting does lock after a few days. He has a comment below on it.

kls
For those seeing this thread for the first time, the above comment was down-voted shortly after I posted it, another HN member must have up-voted and I think that is testament to the great nature of HN. But I request that if anyone sees my comments down-voted either in this thread or in my history please do not up-vote them. I did not post this to rectify my karma, but rather I am genuinely interested in finding out if this is an issue or if I have somehow become trapped in some kind of automatic down-vote mechanism (Though that would not explain post from several days ago all of the sudden dropping to 0) but I am more interested in finding out if this is a real issue (comment sniping) than I am about a few points of Karma. In saying that I do appreciate the effort to help.
tstegart
Karma does not get rectified, it gets balanced. So don't worry. If there is someone down-voting your comments out of spite, karma will get them, and you will find joy and unexpected abundance when you least expect it.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
samstave
This should be printed on a piece of paper and put into a baked pastry.
brudgers
Downvotes are locked out after several days.

I've noticed that replies appear to out lock after a longer time based on the chaos which sometimes appears on the "Ask" page when I've gone to a 1200 day old story.

Forrest7778
That would be interesting and troublesome at some intersects - because there are posts that are brought back up after a long period of time - maybe there should be a limit on the number of posts you can downvote within a period of time if they belong to the same person?
brudgers
Though sometimes downvotes are used to express disagreement, downvotes should be considered editorial feedback - either you didn't make your point clearly, or your comment is considered likely to derail the discussion.

Use the "edit" and "delete" links, respectively if you are concerned about the karma score of a particular comment.

It is bad form on HN to complain about downvotes.

kls
I did not think I was complaining about them, I just noticed that several of them drooped to 0 all at once. This has happened to me twice so it seemed like their may have been a pattern which is why I asked if other people had experienced it. It does not usually happen to my comments so it was out of the norm, especially given that some conversations have seen no action in the past few days. It could very well be coincidental, which is why I asked. If it conveyed as me complaining about being down-voted then I apologize it was not my intent.
brudgers
Going to zero is always more likely with one point comments than with those deemed worthy of an upvote.
kls
Sure but I had 5 or 6 of them drop in the course of a few seconds. If I posted them in a row then I would assume that I am just having a bad day and not contributing value. But these are spread out among post that have died off, which seemed strange to me, many have sat for a few days with no activity and then they all dropped in a short period of time. It very well could be coincidence I don't rule that out. Which is why I asked if other people have seen the pattern.
samstave
I think downvoting without commenting as to why is far more bad form than even complaining about downvotes.
vannevar
The problem is that the upvote/downvote functionality is overloaded. One usage is symmetrical, but the other is not. If a user downvotes a comment because it violates the HN guidelines, that usage is just as valuable as an upvote to reward an informative or well-written comment.

But if a user downvotes a comment simply because they disagree, the site is robbed of their reasoning, while a user who upvotes a comment because they agree helps the site avoid needless duplication.

People tend to confuse these separate uses, and the symmetrical presentation in the UI reinforces the impression that the function is also symmetrical when it really isn't.

samstave
I wish I could side-vote this "Insightful"
brudgers
I think you have overloaded "agree" and underloaded "disagree."

I.e. I may agree with the sentiment of a snarky post and upvote it and thereby damage the discourse by encouraging snark. Likewise, I may disagree with the premise of a post because it is absurd, and improve the discourse by downvoting it.

Furthermore, downvotes don't rob the site of a person's reasoning and posts frequently go from negative to positive territory.

In other words, karma is intended to behave like karma and largely does - people even worry about it.

vannevar
I may agree with the sentiment of a snarky post and upvote it and thereby damage the discourse by encouraging snark.

Sure, no karma system can prevent people from deliberately rewarding bad behavior. But at least you won't be posting another redundant snarky post, which makes my point that using upvotes to agree helps the site.

[D]ownvotes don't rob the site of a person's reasoning

Sure they do. If I downvote a post I don't agree with instead of replying to it, no one else knows why I disagreed. I may have knowledge that would be of general interest to the community. Which makes my second point, that downvotes to disagree harm the site.

Using karma to promote quality posting and discourage negative behavior is symmetrical; using it to agree and disagree is not.

anamax
> They are not controversial posts at all, and most of them are just friendly advice. Has anyone else had this happen to them?

If you think that this is dick behavior, why do you care?

kls
It is more of a curiosity as to whether this happens on HN. There is a cultural norm on HN that I believe goes against such behavior, so I was curious if it is actually happening, given that this is the second time I have seen this pattern. That being said, if it was truly happening and became widespread, I would consider leaving HN, which is why I am so concerned about it. One of the reasons I came to HN was the reduced amount of such activity. Please don't take that as a threat to take my ball and go home, it is not meant as that, rather I am just stating my values in a online community, and I would take that as a signal that much of that value has died. Given the value that HN has been I would hate to see such.
anamax
> That being said, if it was truly happening and became widespread, I would consider leaving HN, which is why I am so concerned about it.

Why? Karma points are meaningless.

Suppose that you thought that a lot of BMW drivers were jerks. Would that affect your decision to buy a BMW?

kls
It is not the points, rather it may be an indicator of a trend among the demographic of individuals. For example say I participated in a car club, where all members where experts at vehicle technology and then over time said BMW jerks took over more and more, the information would start to reflect their preference (BMW tech) and thought process and at some point there will be a event horizon where it seems like all car club members are jerks and all information was being presented by jerks who think so little of opposing viewpoint that they would disable your car, for something as petty as making a point that maybe a particular Mercedes technology is superior. I personally don't like information that is biased by ego. I am not saying that HN is close to that, but it was not long ago that the thought of someone systematically down-voting another member in HN would be unheard-of. My point was not that I am on the cusp of leaving but rather I share the concern that with HN's growth we have to be aware of possible decline in quality and discuss ways to ensure the quality that HN provides.
anamax
> am not saying that HN is close to that, but it was not long ago that the thought of someone systematically down-voting another member in HN would be unheard-of.

Oh really? When was this time?

I ask because I saw it the first time I noticed points. Is that because I'm a newbie?

> I share the concern that with HN's growth we have to be aware of possible decline in quality and discuss ways to ensure the quality that HN provides.

And the relationship between HN quality and "inappropriate downvoting" is?

kls
I ask because I saw it the first time I noticed points. Is that because I'm a newbie?

I only noticed it twice and that is the reason I asked about the issue. It may very well have happened before, that is what I was inquiring about, to understand if it is widespread.

And the relationship between HN quality and "inappropriate downvoting" is?

I think you are looking for something empirical which is not what I am basing my view on this subject on. Rather I hold some core values and that is what I am basing it on a value system as such it is internal to me. To me a widespread demographic of people who downvote out of malice compromises that value system, I would not want to participate in such a system. In saying that, I am not saying that HN has come to that.

anamax
> Rather I hold some core values and that is what I am basing it on a value system as such it is internal to me.

And you're not going to tell us those "core values".

> To me a widespread demographic of people

What definition of "widespread" are you using? Would you say that an instance of malicious downvoting almost every day would qualify?

HN probably has 5-10k regulars, so let's go with 5k. 1% of 5k is 50. If 1% maliciously downvote 6 times a year, that's an incident almost every day.

I don't know about your "core values", but 1% doing something every other month doesn't strike me as widespread.

kls
And you're not going to tell us those "core values".

I apologize I thought I was clear on it, I would not want to participate in a forum with people that's conduct is below a conduce standard that I hold myself to, If I felt that such conduct had reached a threshold of my tolerance for such behavior.

I don't know about your "core values", but 1% doing something every other month doesn't strike me as widespread.

I don't know if my case is even a true case of it or if it is widespread hence me asking if other people have seen the pattern, therefore the exact value of when it would send me over the edge is unknown. I do know that if it where happening to me once a week or so, I would probably give serious consideration to not participating in posting comments at the least. And I would also tend to view contributed news as having the possibility of being posted by such people that have little regard for the quality of the site.

chrisacky
Anamax, you are missing the point. He doesn't care about any of the ancilliary effects that come as a consequence of the down voting... but the person who is clicking on the links clearly does see some worth in the "sniping behaviour". That behaviour points towards the reverse of the cultural norm that most people think of when they think of HN.

That's his point.

anamax
> That behaviour points towards the reverse of the cultural norm that most people think of when they think of HN.

I addressed that with:

>> Suppose that you thought that a lot of BMW drivers were jerks. Would that affect your decision to buy a BMW?

kls
To directly address that question, no it would not affect my purchasing decision, but it would affect my decision to join a club for BMW owners and associate with those members. To me, I view HN as more of a social group than a product.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
adrianwaj
I wonder if data is kept to check who is downvoting what. Then pg could tell you.